Delayed Senses
by faintest-whim
Summary: He just stood there, jamming the broken bagels back into the toaster, over and over again. :oneshot:


_DelayedSenses_

_oliverlilly fanfiction_

"_Am I too late?" he called into the house. _

"_Maybe." _

"_I'm sorry, just too much work, and after, I had coffee with-"_

"_Miley."_

"_Yeah, and she invited me to see her new apartment, and she cooked her new cookie recipe for me."_

"_Ah."_

There were fractions of seconds that she wished she could take out. She wished that she could replace time with other times where she just wasted time, the golden dust motes falling on her ivory face.

There were definitely times when she wanted to.

There were times when she wanted to take time away, too. Maybe put it in her pocket, save it for later, or let it grow stale and old and moldy. And wasted.

Her bedroom light, old and full of cobwebs, with the occasional fly or gnat, was slow. Delayed, perhaps.

Everyday, when she would rush into her bedroom and unconsciously flip on her smudged, peanut butter smelling switch, it took one fraction of a second to have the lights go on, and always, in that one fraction of a second, her mind would wander to the darkest depths.

When the light would come on full blast, she would already be disoriented, from the one fraction of a second. she would be paranoid, shaking, scared.

Maybe there was a serial killer lurking in her room, a deranged, mangy haired killer. And when she rushed into her room, he would take advantage of that one fraction of a second, and kill her.

Or maybe, there would be a surprise party for her, when she was at her worst. And when she would stomp into her room, her face wrinkled and puffy and full of shadows, and she would grow angrier at the dark and herself and she would scream loudly, loudly, loudly. And when her friends would cheerfully yell 'SURPRISE!' she would be so angry, she would throw something at them.

Or, maybe, her gentle, shy, and un-nagging husband and her would have a horrible, horrible fight, both of them being out of character, so out of character, he would finally scream and she would scream back, and finally, it would all quiet down.

And on the next day, the room would be completely empty, empty. It would be hollow, hollow, hollow, like her heart.

-

And with her heels aching from standing for so long, she climbed up the stairs, and flipped on the light.

And forgetting about that one fraction of a second, she rushed in, already planning what to do once she saw the freshly made bed, and she felt herself tilting, tilting, tilting down, forgetting about the new plans they had spoken about.

And forgetting about rainstorm last Thursday.

"Lilly, Lilly? It's, um, breakfast time." he called up the stairs, a bit apprehensively.

Remembering their daily meal of bagels and soymilk, he got out two bagels, putting them down in the toaster.

"Lilly?" he still called up gently, "Lilly, it's time for breakfast."

She didn't come down.

He sighed, and got down two clean glasses from their small cupboard, filling them both to the brim with the cold creamy liquid.

She didn't come down, and he swore he heard a small thump, or maybe a groan?

He sighed again, sitting down on the creaking, unstable chair, and waited. Thoughts were swimming through his mind, each one going through at one-sixteenth of a second.

Maybe she decided to sleep in.

Maybe, maybe she was just still mad at him.

Maybe she was with someone else, in the bed.

Maybe she didn't care about him at all.

Maybe she just thought that he was mean.

An hour and seventeen minutes later, Oliver Oken got up from the table and climbed up the steps, stopping a little on each one.

Maybe she wanted to be left alone.

Maybe she was crying hysterically, in their room, maybe-

A jolt like lightning went through him, straight to his brain.

Their room.

-

He waited, watching the red orange neon glare of the toaster emit from the two slots.

One sixteenth of a second.

Seventy-seven minutes.

Four thousand, six hundred twenty freaking seconds.

He jammed the bagels back into the toaster again, black crumbs all over his white, button up shirt.

"LILLY, IT'S BREAKFAST TIME," he screamed, pouring more soymilk into the glasses, a white stream dripping steadily onto the floor, into the carved indents.

When he took out the black bagels, or rather large crumbs out of the toaster, and yelled her name again, large tears finally spilling down his face, he jammed them back into the toaster again.

Instead of toasting again, a loud buzz emitted.

"L-Lilly…it's…time f-for breakfast."


End file.
